I bought one a couple weeks ago. They are amazing for cooking a strip. Put in in the oven and preheat the oven to 500 degrees. When it's done, turn on a burner to high. Put the skillet on the burner and put the steak on for 30 seconds then flip and cook the other side for 30 seconds. Put it back in the oven for 3 minutes, flip, and 3 more minutes. Perfect steak.

Don't use soap when you clean it, though. Scrub it under hot water, dry it, and rub a little olive or vegetable oil on it before putting it away.

I bought one a couple weeks ago. They are amazing for cooking a strip. Put in in the oven and preheat the oven to 500 degrees. When it's done, turn on a burner to high. Put the skillet on the burner and put the steak on for 30 seconds then flip and cook the other side for 30 seconds. Put it back in the oven for 3 minutes, flip, and 3 more minutes. Perfect steak.

Don't use soap when you clean it, though. Scrub it under hot water, dry it, and rub a little olive or vegetable oil on it before putting it away.

Sounds like you either A) Watched a very old episode of Good Eats or B) Purchased Alton Brown's cookbook.

That's a verbatim description of how he cooks his steaks indoors.

It's a passable winter substitute for wood-charcoal in a Weber grill...

Not really. Le Creuset are the top of the line, but I've never seen or heard anyone who owns 'em say they were worth the extra money you spend. Most of my cast iron is Lodge.

Personally, I'd skip the griddle and go with a 10- or 12-inch skillet. Everything tastes better in cast iron, and you'll limit what you can do with just a griddle.

I have a Le Crueset set that my wife won in a baking contest. It's pretty nice, but nowhere near worth the money they ask for them.

I use my Cabellas Dutch Oven more than I use any of her stuff and it works great. Otherwise I just use my cheapie Lodge skillet and have never had a complaint.

Spending a bunch of money on Cast Iron cookware is dumb - it's strength is in its simplicity. That's like spending $100 on a flathead screwdriver because it has ivory inlays in the handle or something.

For seasoning, I still haven't done this, but according to Cook's Illustrated, this is the ultimate way to season a cast iron pan. It'll take some time, but you'll be rewarded.

From a recent edition of Cooks Illustrated (please pardon any typos - I had to re-type it from the magazine):

Quote:

For years we've seasoned cast iron cookware in the test kitchen by placing it over medium heat and wiping out the pan with coats of vegetable oil until its surface turns dark and shiny. When a pan starts to look patchy, we simply repeat the process. But when we heard about a new method that creates a slick surface so indestructible that touch-ups are almost never necessary, we were intrigued. Developed by blogger Sheryl Canter, the approach calls for treating the pan with multiple coats of flaxseed oil between hour-long stints in the oven.

We carried out Canter's approach on new, unseasoned cast iron skillets and compared them with pans treated with vegetable oil - and the results amazed us. The flaxseed oil so effectively bonded to the skillets, forming a sheer, stick-resistant veneer, that even a run through our commercial dishwasher with a squirt of degreaser left them totally unscathed. But the vegetable oil-treated skillets showed rusty spots and patchiness when they emerged from the dishwasher, requiring reseasoning before use.

Why did the new treatment work so well? Flaxseed oil is the food-grade equivalent of linseed oil, used by artists to give their paintings a hard, polished finish, and it boasts six times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids as vegetable oil. Over prolonged exposure to high heat, these fatty acids combine to form a strong, solid matrix that polymerizes to the pan's surface.

Although lengthy, seasoning with flaxseed oil is a mainly hands-off undertaking. We highly recommend the treatment:

1. Warm an unseasoned pan (either new or stripped of seasoning*) for 15 minutes in a 200-degree oven to open its pores.

2. Remove the pan from the oven. Place 1 tablespoon flaxseed oil in the pan and, using tongs, rub the oil into the surface with paper towels. With fresh paper towels, thoroughly wipe out the pan to remove excess oil.

3. Place the oiled pan upside down in a cold oven, then set the oven to its maximum baking temperature. Once the oven reaches its maximum temperature, heat the pan for one hour. Turn off the oven; cool the pan in the oven for at least two hours.

4. Repeat the process five more times or until the pan develops a dark, semi-matte surface.